Did "All Lives Matter" Lead to "White Supremacists Liberals"? [View all]

[daredtowork]

Last edited Sun Aug 9, 2015, 11:59 PM - Edit history (2)

In response to the hand-wringing about Black Lives Matter protesters calling Bernie supporters "White Supremacist Liberals", Spider Jerusalem posted an article on White Fragility. Immediately someone demonstrated their white fragility by alerting that OP. I was on that jury, that happily concluded that DU should debate such matters, and coincidentally I was on another jury concerning a complaint over another DU member (Bravenak) who had been Alert swarmed and ended up being Flagged for Review over her comments conveying the source of the "White Supremacist Liberals" discourse. Personally I think Democrats - especially Bernie, who has been disrupted TWICE - needs to hear more about this.

Instead of recoiling from being called "White Supremacist Liberals", perhaps we should examine where this meme is coming from: check on whether it has some basis and respond to the accusation from a place of knowledge.

It occurred to me that the "White Supremacist Liberal" accusation may have snowballed from the "All Lives Matter" issue.

A lot of smart, otherwise good and well-meaning white progressives/liberals have been very pushy about saying "All Lives Matter". I've posted a few times that I thought both Hillary's and O'Malley's use of the therm was a deliberate signal to these very people who have been anxious to reaffirm "All Lives Matter": they think it's an important humanist idea and the basis of universal reason. For some reason they absolutely refuse to look at it's connection with White Supremacists on Twitter and many of them were alienated from the #BLM movement because of vandalism during protests last year and because of the recent disruption to Netroots Nation. When I try to educate them with what little I know, they are highly resistant and insist other people must organize in the "effective" way they always did and must seek to "get white people on their side". There is very little awareness that this is radical action because Democrats have had the black vote for a long time, and we've had a black President for 8 years, but important changes that are needed now didn't happen.

Is it possible that this pushiness about using "All Lives Matter" is causing the backlash of "White Supremacist Liberals" among some #BLM discussions?

None of the Primary candidates have come out to talk about why the neediness around pushing the phrase "All Lives Matter" might be a symptom of "white fragility". None of them have used that to open a dialogue on racism and to acknowledge and legitimize Black Lives Matter. Apparently only O'Malley has issued a Criminal Justice Reform plan.

Let's get beyond the playground grouchiness over being called a mean name and look for the sources of that accusation (whether we believe it's justified or not).

UPDATE:
While searching for something completely different, I stumbled across this article with tweets from the 2014 Millions March for Justice about "allies" chanting "All Lives Matter". I'm unfamiliar with Twitchy - I hope this isn't an RW source. Scroll down for several tweets objecting to the chants.

http://twitchy.com/2014/12/13/they-can-go-home-white-allies-at-millionsmarchnyc-offend-with-all-lives-matter-chants/

The original intention of #BlackLivesMatter hashtag from Alicia Garza with comment on All Lives Matter, Allies, and White Supremacy:
http://www.thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/

This inspired me to Google "Allies" + "All Lives Matter". Here are some pertinent results:

http://www.upworthy.com/4-things-you-should-do-when-youre-told-black-lives-matter

http://theithacan.org/news/ithaca-college-students-discuss-how-to-be-a-white-ally/ (note the use of "white supremacist social structure" in the last sentence).

http://groupthink.kinja.com/yes-all-lives-matter-now-shut-up-about-it-1666463385

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pastor-renita-marie-mdiv/confessing-blacklivesmatter_b_7926414.html

https://www.damemagazine.com/2015/06/14/what-white-people-really-mean-when-they-say-alllivesmatter (warning: I got a security alert on this site)

http://www.jewishheritagemonth.com/adl/official-blogs-from-the-anti-defamation-league-adl-blogs.php (read the last line of this about White Supremacists imitating the #BLM movement).